Part 14 — How I Run My Entire Digital Life on a Raspberry Pi: Host Your Own Secure Chat Server for True Privacy
In a world dominated by centralized chat platforms like Slack, Discord, Teams, and WhatsApp, privacy and control over your own data have become rare commodities. These popular services often lock users into closed ecosystems, where your messages, contacts, and metadata are stored on servers you don’t own. But the risks go even deeper than most people realize. Even so-called “encrypted” apps collect vast amounts of metadata — who you talk to, when, from where, and on what device. This metadata can be as revealing as the messages themselves, mapping out your social circles and daily routines for corporations, governments, or hackers. Most mainstream messengers also force you to register with a phone number or email, tying your digital identity to your real-world self and eroding true anonymity. And because these platforms run on centralized servers, your private conversations are always just one breach, subpoena, or algorithm update away from exposure or loss.
Enter Matrix, a revolutionary open standard for decentralized, federated communication that flips this model on its head. In this post, I’ll show you how to set up my own Matrix server right on a Raspberry Pi, reclaiming control over your private chats and joining the future of open, federated communication.
Matrix
Matrix lets you run your own homeserver, giving you full ownership of your messages and identity. Unlike traditional platforms, Matrix servers communicate with each other seamlessly, forming a distributed network where you can chat with anyone on any server — whether they’re on your own self-hosted instance or a public server like matrix.org. This federation ensures no single company controls the network, reducing reliance on centralized gatekeepers.
Privacy is baked into Matrix’s design. End-to-end encryption protects your conversations so that only you and your chat partners can read the messages — homeservers only store encrypted data, making mass surveillance or data harvesting far more difficult.
You wanna chat about it? Federate with and DM me 🙂 @xdentalhacker:matrix.nakedon.top